Neverending Stories #4

Welcome to a new episode of Neverending Stories, where I share my favourite stories with you. I love reading and sharing my latest finds with you - whether that's a book, an online magazine, a blog or a podcast. I really got into listening to podcasts recently - which can definitely be traced back to my slight obsession with Serial. For now, get yourself a cup of tea and have your pens at the ready:

Having mentioned this magazine in my last In Seven Days Around The Web, I couldn't wait any longer and ran straight to my nearest newsagent to pick up a copy of my own. The beautiful imagery really lends itself to the large format and this issue, the Scotland issue, has made me want to visit Scotland even more. Apart from stunning landscape photographs, the magazine also offers interesting interviews and fashion pieces.

Section D by Monocle 24 is a weekly hour-long podcast that investigates the design world and uncovers some really interesting details about everything from furniture brands to architecture and fashion design. Another weekly favourite of mine is The Menu by Monocle 24, which dedicates an hour every week to the latest happenings in the food and drink world. I listen to both of these whilst getting ready for work in order to kickstart my brain.

James Salter - Light Years

James Salter's book actually found its way to my bookshelf thanks to a recommendation on Twitter. The book is a portrait of a marriage which seems perfect on the surface, but throughout the book, Salter reveals more and more cracks - or so I've been told. Here is the first paragraph:

We dash the black river, its flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. The sea birds hang above it, they wheel, disappear. We flash the wide river, a dream of the past. The deeps fall behind, the bottom is paling the surface, we rush by the shallows, boats beached for winter, desolate piers. And on wings like the gulls, soar up, turn, look back.

Joan Didion - The White Album

If there is one thing I have to do more it's read books. This latest addition to my bookshelf had been hovering in my basket for many months and last week, after finishing Ian McEwan's 'On Chesil Beach', I finally ordered it. Due to the essay format, it's a great book to read on the train or in a café - perfect for people like me who don't have a lot of time on their hands! As usual, here is the start of the book so you get a sense of its atmosphere:

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be "interesting" to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling in the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.

99% Invisible is a tiny weekly radio show that's about design and architecture and investigates the invisible activity that shapes our world. I like to listen to this podcast in my evenings with a cup of tea.

“Roman Mars lights the radio. His pieces conjure other worlds, grapple with big ideas, make sound three dimensional. They are smart and funny and original. The Kitchen Sisters would like to be Presidents of his Fan Club.”

It's Nice That's Studio Audience is a weekly podcast serving as an audio insight into the news and views surrounding the creative industries. Another great getting-ready podcast that leaves me inspired and ready to start my day at work.